Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

Please report on your experiences. I instantly noticed faster boot times and much less memory resources with the Win7 ultimate. Around 970MB as I recall. I understand that is without all the VAIO add ons.
It appears that you retained all or part of the recovery partition. Can you still use the Restore PC to factory defaults option in VAIO Care?

 

Ok. I feel you man! What is up with the fix I found on the BB review forum about listening to this device and routing it to the digital/optical output without muting the mic? Props to the jerky dude on BB review for this one btw.

So my headphone out jack is also labeled 'optical out'. whazzup with that?!! Sounds cool...

 

I hear you brother! It's just that this is perhaps the greatest laptop I have ever graced the keyboard of! I don't want any friggin morse code off of this thing! Seriously, guys on the fence, order that baby. I don't mean to seem negative.

 

So Dude, how is it?! You have been waiting forever for this thing right? Did I miss your report somewhere in between pages 225 and 25x? How is your display? I am totally diggin the 1080p shizz! It reminds me that my old @ss needs lasik!

 

I might be returning my CW i5 back to Best Buy and getting the F series. I have a few questions on the F series laptop and they are:
1. How does the 1080p screen compare to the 1600 x 900 screen from the CW series?
2. Are the viewing angles good on the screen?
3. Does the bluray drive make noise when playing bluray movies?
4. Is the fan loud and come on often?
5. How annoying is the buzzing sound?
6. What is the throttling issue?
7. Which order do the drivers have to be installed when doing a clean install of Windows 7?
8. Does it get hot?

 

I own a CW 14" and I love it but I always felt that I had to scroll my @ss off to see an entire web page. This was due to the small screen and the 16:9 aspect ratio. This thing just provides so much more screen area and is truly a joy to look at. In my experience, grab the highest resolution display available.
Viewing angles are very limited vertically and respectable horizontally. When you hit the vertical sweet spot on this US display it is just awesome!
You will not find a better rig in this price range anywhere. Do Not buy an HP!

 

Thanks for the links. Glad you added the frame view because the first link wouldn't work.

How many discs does it take? Should I use DVD or DVD-DL? I know Taiyo-Yuden is quality, but nobody local carries them so I'd have to buy them online at Super Media Store, most likely. Currently I have Verbatim 16x DVD-Rs, which Digital FAQ ranks at number 1, ahead of Taiyo-Yuden, at number 2. As far back as I can remember Taiyo-Yuden was always the one to beat.

 

Verbatims are all that. Use 'em. I was able to do a complete recovery on one DL DVD.

 

Yes it does but you have to scroll down past a stupid blank space. I added the frame link because I knew some of you have a broken scroll wheel.

 

For the recovery disc(s) use 8x or 16x or does it really matter?

So I assume from the post above that using DVD-R would require 2 discs?

 

Hola Joe,
I'm not sure if your screen name reminds me of jaques Cousteu or Inspector Clouseau!! Sorry bro - I just had to!
Does your dog bite? No. MMMMMSMJSKFFOSDUFPIEYPYEEiEUPOI. I thought you said your dog didn't bite. That's not my dog!!

 

that is correct. No biggie as they are cheap! I suggest burning them slower and verifying data if possible with your burn program.

 

It's a French-Canadian expression that roughly means "Joe Average", similar to "Monsieur-madame-tout-le-monde" (literally "Mr/Mrs everybody"). For example: any Joe Bleau can fix that whining.

 

Has anyone browsed thru the 'goodbye CW hello EA' thread??

Pics are up one the sony UK site and one post talks about the unit using i5's and 1066 ram but having Ati's 5650 card.

Why not on the F????? Would that card just diminish battery life and cause heat issues when paired with i7's??

For Sony's current flagship model and also advertised in CES, I would liked to have seen Ati on this unit especially if the 5650 is ranked a number of positions over the 330m and supports directx 11.

 

If the Ati 5650 is indeed true well....nothing in life is fair.... Even on the next refresh (sigh)

 

Download Phoenix EDID Designer http://www.tucows.com/preview/329441
Extract the executable that is inside of the just downloaded Zip and run it
From the "Tools" menu click the "Extract EDID registry"
Will open a window, select the single string available and then press ok
You will get a warning, you click on it
Now in the "File" menu select "Export ..." and save it on a USB stick, an external HD or a shared partition, with the name you prefer (I use sonyedid for this example) and select "Raw 128-byte format (*.raw)"

Now start Ubuntu, take the file you created before and put it in /home /"youruser", then open the terminal and write that

Now enable the Restricted drivers / hardware drivers from NVIDIA (version 185) that can be found in System-> Administration
Come back in a terminal and give this command

this will create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf that we should edit.
Always terminal

In the Section "Device" of the file, add the last two lines to get a result like this:

Save and then reboot the system .. it should now restart with the nvidia logo and the screen with 1920x1080 resolution!


Hope You got that and helps You (and others)


BTW Erik, I remember that You had some small trouble setting up the intel wifi, I'we found that it's now fully supported by Kernel 2.6.32 so it should be as easy as update the system after installing and it should work on reboot, I don't know if that's also for suse (which kernel it uses) but may help others to easyly solve that also, I think that remains still open it's only the mic.

Or have You found other problems so far?

 

Is that kind of a Larsen effect?

If I've got that right in practice the noise ends up on a optical output with nothing connected, and what about if i do connect something there?

 

Hmm my post disappeared. Strange.

Anyways, I am so close to canceling my laptop order that it is pissing me off.

I ordered it 14 days ago, and now it is delayed. Sony can not give me any reason why it is delayed or a ETA. Ugg so what to do?!

 

According to lastdon's post here, there is a good reason for the delay and you should be happy about it :

When I called Sony Style US yesterday, they told me the current estimated shipping date for preconfig is about 9 feb. Maybe it's better waiting & getting a perfect machine?

 

Guess so. I will give it another week.

 

I can feel your pain, but I should wait.
I ordered one VPCF11V5E from sonystyle.nl on the 27th of January, but I think these are the best laptops of this moment. If Sony has solved the noise issues they are indeed the best laptops

 

Hello everybody,

A happy F11S1E user from Greece and I would like some info
anyone knows how the sounds played when you
raise/lower the volume can be deactivated?

Thanks in advance,
Manos

 

In "sound" in the control panel.
Choose the sound-scheme "no sounds". (I hope ;-))

 

they have moved the date again to the 10th of feb

 

I returned it after just two hours due to the bad screen two Fridays ago. I tried to order a new one today and was told the F1190 CTO is "No longer available...." and that I couldn't order an F-series at this time.. I guess I'll have to go in to BB and get that Qosmio.

It's funny how I was an early early adopter of the F-series, and and have talked about nothing else, and ultimately I just can't get one...

 

Yeah, I hear ya! At least with this method you can still use your mic. Call it a compromise until Sony releases something!

 

Hey All

Any updates on the full HD-display on the european i5 series? Is it the matte or the glossy type?

Grtz Jan

 

Something weird going on. In Canada the F1190 CTO series is no longer available, bit the discontinued FW590 CTO has been ressurrected, and is available for Feb 10 shipping. There must be serious issues with the F. I just bought my F111FD last Saturday at Future Shop. I'm now thinking of returning it.

 

Still available on US.

 

Sound like a great reason to return it. Good luck with your computing needs.

 

It's glossy, as I noticed in the local stores when comparing the VPCF11M1E/H and the VPCF11S1E/B non-CTO versions of the F-series.


I'm currently doubting between those two models btw. The essential differences are the following:

- i7 720 vs i5 520
- 6GB DDR3@1333 MHz vs 4GB DDR3@1066 MHz
- Matte Adobe RGB screen vs Glossy screen

The i7 version costs 350 euro more - is this upgrade worth the extra money, and why/when?


The Vaio EB also seems interesting because of the Radeon 5650, it's a shame that we can't upgrade them through CTO in Belgium since that isn't available.

 

If you try to order the F1190 off sonystyle.ca it states "Estimated Shipping Date Unknown" and it also says "This product is no longer available for purchase" whereas before they were just on back order.

If you are not experiencing any issues, whethers it's a bad monitor or a strange "sound" there is no reason to return it. You have a 1 year warranty. No need to panic and return something that isn't "broken".

 

"One bit of evidence to support this would be the screen on the Dell XPS 1645 which has been widely lauded as one of the best screens ever seen on a laptop, and many photographers love it. Many also complain about the glare. If I make a bit of effort to control glare on my Vaio F display, I'm quite impressed with it's performance as well. "

So you would rate the Dell 1645 display over the Sony F11? Would it be by a lot? Any opinion on the Lenovo W510 display?

 

Since you saw them side-by-side, how would you rate the colour vibrancy/contrast and general impression of the display between the Adobe RGB matte and the regular glossy version?

 

This is very difficult to say when you're looking in a store and I'm not exactly a professional so other persons in this thread would be much better qualified to express an opinion on this... but my general impressions were the following: the glossy screen's colours seemed more bright compared to the matte screen (which is logical), but the colour definition of the matte screen seemed to be much better. The matte screen was slightly darker though - I'd expect it performing excellent when calibrated and in a better environment to check it out.
The glossy screen reminded me of the FW51 Full HD screen here in Belgium, while the first comparison I had to think about when seeing the matte screen was the Sony BRAVIA tv here at home.

There are some very good posts about the differences between glossy and matte screens in this thread and about calibrating the screen for optimal performance, you should read them if you haven't already.

 

I imagine that with the unexpected sales for this unit, plus extra rotation due to defect repairs, the Canadian allocation has just been used up. It's not withdrawn, just run out. If you have a good F11, keep it!

The FW590 is not "resurrected," it has always been available with a two-week expecting shipping time. Nothing's changed there. One thing that HAS changed is the F-series is actually listed in the backdoor "Custom" links, formally only the FW590 and earlier was there.

 

So is the unavailability of the F Series on sony style ca limited to just Canada or indicative of a widespread issue? I'm ready to buy - finally - but have reservations now. Anyone purchase very recently from sony style US? Too much conflicting info.

 

Demand has used up the Canadian allocation, that's all. Possibly we're not getting F11s again until the refresh, I don't know. In the US and elsewhere there is still available stock.

 

Absolutely, i'm not a professional by any means and wasn't looking for a professional viewpoint, was just looking for an average users perception of the quality of the different displays. I've taken a gamble and ordered the matte RGB version even though i've loved the Glossy display on my Asus G1S previously. My first choice was the Dell XPS 16 purely for the RGB LED Glossy display, however that was offset by its legion of problems. When reading any reviews of the SXPS the average user will comment on the brilliance of the display (they aren't professionals either). That doesn't seem to be the case for the F11 RGB Screen.

E.g. your comparison of the colour definition being better on the matte display provides some reassurance. Another user posted earlier that the Glossy display was 200 nits and the Matte was 300, so it could just be one was set at a lower brightness than the other as well.

Time will tell. Still attempting to wait patiently. Laptop production had "started" on Saturday but not yet received any other notice.

 

You need to read this post http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5776772&postcount=1376

The instructions in the first link are reasonably clear. As for phoenix, you must choose Export and not Save as. When exporting, choose the raw format.

I am attaching my xorg.conf. I am not attaching my edid file as that could be different from the one you need for your system and I don't know the effects of using a wrong edid file.

 

If I didn't need a laptop now I would wait for the refresh. I'm getting fed up with using the ps3. I think today's the day. Wish me luck.

 

awwwww helll......my F...my F....lol it's on hold....

edit: sorry...The specialist says that there are 'several' parts on backorder...(sigh)

 

I don't think it matters anymore these days with what speed you burn. Just start the creation of your recovery disks and get a cup of coffee. The correct speed will automatically be chosen.

 

SuSE is a bit more conservative in kernel updates so I am still using my home baked kernel until SuSE makes available one that supports the wifi card.

In the mean time I have checked that hibernate to disk is also working (no configuration required on suse). The only thing I needed to do was to add a hook script in /etc/pm/sleep.d to restart the network and mount nfs again on waking up.

This is actually a bit worse than my previous laptop (ipw3945) where the network just automagically came backup without any hook scripts in openSuSE 11.2. But then again, this is new technology and I also had some problem sinstalling SuSE 9.1 on my A215M laptop when I got it.

 

Hahaha, i was thinking the same thing!!!

Still waiting patiently for ours in the UK...

matt

 

I've never seen the XPS 1645 display--just read a lot about it as I almost bought one--another poster on this forum, wbglider had one briefly before returning it for various reasons not related to the screen. You can read what he said about it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5788453&highlight=dell+xps+1645#post5788453 post number 1700 I believe.

 

@MelodyMaster or anyone else who might know. I'm having a problem connecting my Vaio F to my home theater system using the HDMI out. I suspect the problem may be unfixable and related to my A/V compents but I just want to make sure. My TV is an older set--one of the first HD sets to come out. It doesn't have HDMI in, just component in. My A/V receiver is fairly new, and has both HDMI and component in and out. What I've done is connect the laptop's HDMI out to the receiver's HDMI in, then connect from the receiver's component out to the TV's component in. For this to work, obviously the receiver needs to convert the HDMI signal to component output. Is that something that most AV receivers are able to do? If so, I must be missing a setting somewhere. I've set my receiver to accept the HDMI signal via aux, then the TV to receive the receiver's component output. In my receiver set up, it asks me if "Monitor out" is an HDMI monitor. Each time I toggle that setting between yes and no, my laptop makes the connecting/disconnecting noise. In neither case do I get any signal to my TV, and I don't get "detected new display" on the laptop. I've changed the screen output on the laptop to "duplicate" between laptop and external display. Nothing's worked. Any thoughts?

 

I now have my UK F series laptop (specs below) - will post stuff either late this evening or tomorrow morning when I've had a chance to play with it.

 

From experience, the amp cannot downgrade the HDMI signal and just acts as a pass-through for the video signal while processing the multi-channel sound.

Time to upgrade your TV?...

Edit: actually i still stand by what i said, but i wonder if it would detect the TV type if it is connected to the amp anyway even if you connect from the amp to an HDMI-equipped TV? I guess so and it probably sends the data back to the PC via the amp, but check it is the latest HDMI 1.3 version device.

matt